I feel like everyone who was wishing for more Warhammer games – myself included – has gotten full-on monkey paw’d now. “Want Warhammer video games, do you?” cackles some sort of demonic entity with total control over the industry. Let’s call it Quotick.
“Well!” continues Quotick, “How about all of the Warhammer video games in the world?! Inquisitor, re-releases, a Total War, chess and now … a seafaring adventure based on Man o’ War! Didn’t think that franchise even still existed, did you?! Kwahahaha!” he laughs endlessly while flooding your bedroom with copies of the newly announced Man o’ War: Corsair. You drown in cheap plastic.
Picking between playing a human of the Empire or a champion of Chaos, the game sounds a lot closer to Assassin’s Creed Black Flag’s third person naval adventuring than the developer’s previous game, realistic World War 2 RTS Victory At Sea. You move your captain around the ship directing fire or conducting up close ‘n’ personal boarding actions. Your foes cover the full Warhammer range of antagonists and there’ll be over 50 ports to dock at and explore, hiring equipment and mercenaries.
I honestly don’t know what to think. Done right it could be a marvellous thing, but it sounds like it’s taking the concept of sea-bound Warhammer and running with it, rather than being a straight port of the under-utilised naval ruleset. Few actual strategy elements, more an RPG where you happen to also have a big boat. Equally, goodness knows what the budget of something like this will be, but I’d far prefer fewer, better looking games than Games Workshop’s current scattergun approach.
Still, more games is never a bad thing, and this sounds interesting enough to be worth tracking. If GW keep spinning this many plates, statistically one of them should be priceless china. Let’s pretend that metaphor worked and have a look over on the official site for a bit more info. Should be out in early 2016 on Steam Early Access, which has worked out rather well for Mordheim.